Girls Can Be Really, REALLY Naughty, Too

One of the funniest things that happened during my son's moving up day earlier this year was the so-called "awards ceremony" the school's staff held, in which every...single...child...recieved one sort of "award" or another.

It wasn't that all of the students were awarded that I found funny; it was the names of some of the awards given. Apel got a "Little Dash Award," in reference to the child-speedster of Pixar's The Incredibles.

But the "award" that sticks to my memory like a burr is the "Little Miss Diva Award," given to something like two or three of the school's pupils. The description of the award was that the child "constantly demanded attention." Clearly a (very) thinly veiled statement to the parents on exactly what they thought of their parenting technique.

My parents and I, who attended, found this absolutely hilarious.

Looking back, I find it particularly comical that I used to labor under the misapprehension that girls were inherently better behaved than boys. It was one of the reasons why I was delighted to find out that Theia was pregnant with a girl over three years ago.

It's not like my daughter Tala has horns on her head and a tail trailing behind her, but it seems that she is every bit the handful her brother was at her age. Maybe the fact that her brother is the only kid around for her to mold her behavior has something to do with it, but none of those "Little Miss Divas" grew up with Apel and look how they turned out.

We had always seen girls better-behaved than Apel and in other public places. Not the most scientific way to study and assess children's behavior, I know, but hey, I never claimed to be a child psychologist. Any parent with a daughter could have told me otherwise (well, maybe not any parent), but it's just comical how I honestly...we honestly...thought that a child would, by virtue of having an x as opposed to a y chromosome, be ipso facto better behaved.

Tala is still an incredibly sweet girl, but like her brother she's chock-full of little idiosyncracies, even at two-and-a-half years of age. She's capable of pouring out all the shampoo into the toilet, or ripping up magazines, or chucking her brother's case full of Hot Wheels off the bed.

Wait, did I say she didn't have horns and a tail? I'll have to go and check...

...no, no horns or tail there...

When A Child Who Regards His Sibling...and Everyone Else...As Rivals

It was surreal to attent my third or fourth parent-teacher conference at my son's pre-school. I've been a parent for five years, seven if you add my children's ages and although in most instances I've gotten the hang of the whole process, I still don't feel far enough removed from my own childhood (even though I turned eighteen thirteen years ago) to be considered the adult I'm supposed to be. Besides, like i said before, some of the things I'm into keep me locked in that mode of perpetual child mode.

But the point of this post was that I learned something about my son Apel that kind of bothered me. I didn't so much learn it as see it confirmed after observing it for quite some time.

My son, it seems, is overly competitive, a trait which completely leaves me at a loss considering that neither his mother nor I are like that. I, particularly, have always been the laid-back type when it came to things like academics or even sports. I did well in the former, especially in college, because I liked my atmosphere, and did okay in the latter mostly because I just played to have fun.

But Apel seems to see every little activity a some kind of contest or another, whether it's submitting his seatwork, comparing himself to his sister, or even comparing his collection of toy cars to mine, of all things.

He seems to be a test case for the argument that attitudes like competitiveness are entirely inborn, because he was born very much into a household where neither of us practices one-upmanship.

It's clear enough to me, even without a degree in psychology, that he is concerned that, unless he is the best, he won't be loved enough, based on both our experiences at home and his teacher's accounts that seems to be very much the case. I feel partly to blame for this as I am openly affectionate with his sister, though I try whenever it occurs to me in time to spread the affection around so as not to alienate anyone. And besides, Apel's collection of first-hand toys is quite massive compared to his sister's meager colection of hand-me-downs, though I know that isn't supposed to be the proper barometer for parental love.

Still, for one reason or another Apel seems to believe that unless he is the best at something, he won't be good enough for the people he loves.

I only just sat down with him to explain to him that it doesn't have to be this way; he doesn't HAVE to compete with every other kid around to be loved. I explained that while sometimes this attitude can be healthy, as in competitive sports, he doesn't have to practice it all the time. Tricky, tricky stuff.

A New Thrill Shared

I have only the vaguest recollection of not being allowed to ride a roller coaster because I was too small, although I do remember not liking it, and I especially remember the excitement of finally getting to ride one.

It's something of a milestone to finally "initiate" my son into the world of roller-coasting; after a couple of kiddie coaster rides a couple of years ago, I finally took him on a "real" roller-coaster in the form of the Festival Mall coaster, something I had only ever ridden once, years before he was born, and which I developed a hankering to take him on every time he wanted to ride the train downstairs.

It was a real joy to finally take him for a ride, almost eight years since the last time I had ridden
the roller coaster myself, and it felt good knowing it was one more thing he and I could do together.

Of course, it's not as if I ride roller coasters everyday or even more than once every few months, but the important thing is that whenever I hop on one of those things (and I still like to) I can now take someone to whom the exhilaration is still novel and fresh. In fact, it helps that I don't go all that often.

The generation gap between myself and my son is not quite as difficult for me as it may be for many people considering that I'm very much a child at heart, even at 32. I still read comic books and buy toy cars, and have a heightened tolerance for the cartoons my kids watch, though I still make it a point to police some of them. For all of that, however, it's still an incredible challenge for me to understand how kids think; how life is a lot simpler for them than it is for me, particularly in terms of their thought processes. The challenge, and often the frustration comes in not being able to understand those thought processes, like, why does he hurt his sister? Why does he stand on things that might break? Why does he throw something away rather than let me take it from him to prevent him breaking it? Things like that.

The classic dilemmas of any parent, of course.

Bearing this in mind, every little thing that helps reduce the gap helps. Wow, I went off-tangent there.

But seriously, there's really something special about sharing and enjoying the knuckle-whitening experience of the roller coaster ride that creates a little bit of bonding.

It's too bad my wife hates them...